


Time, The Greatest Thief of All

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, As in 'what will happen if they don't break the loop', F/M, Gen, allusions to character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-09
Updated: 2018-04-09
Packaged: 2019-04-20 21:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14269749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: "It is a fearful thing to love what time can touch.Fitz knows this. Is painfully aware. Far too many days it feels like time has taken everything."Fitz's thoughts on time and the loop.





	Time, The Greatest Thief of All

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really quite nervous to post this because it, in a roundabout way, deals with the events of 5x14 that I know that and understand why people are very split about. So with that in mind I'm just going to say this:   
> What this piece of work is about is Fitz's thoughts. Fitz's, or how I imagine his character to be thinking. His thoughts in here do not represent my own at all.   
> I feel like this is a bit all over the place, and if I'm honest I'm not entirely sure if it's meant to be like that or not. I'll leave it up to you!  
> The title is a quote by Ally Carter, and the 'It's a fearful thing to love what time can touch' (which inspired this) is by Eva Ibbotson.   
> I hope you can enjoy! (if that is the right word for it)

_It is a fearful thing to love what time can touch._

Fitz knows this. Is painfully aware. Far too many days it feels like time has taken everything.

It is a fearful thing to love what time can touch and he is always afraid, because time touches everything he loves most in the world.

There are the simplest of things. His daughter, Sarah, is growing older and time has already graced her features. She is growing unimaginably before his eyes; once she fit into the space between his elbow and his wrist, and now she giggles and calls him ‘daddy’ and knows her numbers from one to ten.

Jemma, too, is not untouchable from time. She found her first grey hair and he has noticed (although he would never tell her) the beginnings of faint pencil lines around the corner of her eyes. This does not frighten him. She is here to have pencil lines and grey hairs and he is so glad. She is absolutely beautiful to him and always will be.

There is his mum. His strong, wonderful mum who deserves a much better son than he, is not immune to the effects of time. When he phoned her for the first time in a long while he had been struck by how old her voice was, how tired. He wonders _did I do that to you?_ He makes a resolution to phone her much more often but the oldness never disappears. They video-call sometimes, and it pains him to see the hunch in her spine that wasn’t there before and dampened light in her eyes.

There is himself: Leopold Fitz. He looks at the picture of him and Jemma from Peru then looks at himself in the mirror and sees no resemblance whatsoever. Time has taken a lot from him, has been harsh and unforgiving and he wonders how the hell he made it through everything.

Some days he doesn’t think he has.

Then there is the other Time. Not the passage of years, not that continued progress of existence. No, the Time _loop._

That damnable loop has taken a lot from him.

It’s going to take _everything._

These are the hurtful, messy things.

His relationship with Daisy. Gone and bunt to the ground and rebuilt tentatively but never as strong as before by actions that he believes were right but knows the _how_ was wrong. What scares him is that he doesn’t know if he would do it again, looking at the fallout. He knows she hasn’t forgiven him, honestly doesn’t want her to. It would be nice, he can’t deny, but it would be w _rong._ He’s stopped expecting forgiveness a long time ago.

Sometimes the look of distrust that is still present in her eyes when she looks at him keeps him up at night.

He’s glad for it. Reminds him that he’s still human. Somehow.

There’s his friendships with the rest of the team. Jemma is still by his side, right where she always has been and he is infinitely grateful and glad and _relieved._ Except he had _friends._ For the first time in his life Fitz had friends; they weren’t his best-friend and he didn’t want them to be, but they were so close they were almost like family. Family that you chose and loved for no other reason than you wanted to.

The loop took that too. Or rather he did. He took it from himself and there’s nobody else to blame. And they’re still like family but that type of family that you don’t want to be around for too long because they remind you of what could have been and when you think of love you think of obligation.

There’s the respect that he perhaps once had. That sentiment that once resided in their eyes is gone, replaced by a trepidation and a judgement that on bad days he feels like a knife to the heart. Most days, however, he is indifferent to it.

A person can get used to anything after a while.

But this is what the loop has already taken.

These are the things it’s going to _take._

And he doesn’t think he’s strong enough to survive it.

It’s going to take his friends. Family. Yes, it might not be as it once was and never will be again, and yes, things have been fractured and frayed for a while but dammit he still _cares_ for them and doesn’t want them _hurt._

Isn’t that how this whole mess came around in the first place?

It’s going to take them and it’s going to be painful and he’s going to wish for a cold detachment that he doesn’t want. Not really, anyway.

How can it be that this isn’t the worst?

It’s going to take _Jemma._ Oh, how even thinking about it causes a tightness in his chest and tears to burn his eyes. It’s going to take his wife, his partner his _best – friend._ They’ve been beside each other since they were sixteen. To lose her to this, after everything they’ve battled, is almost unthinkable, almost impossible. _Almost._ That bloody word. He wants to screw it up and stomp on it until it is obliterated beneath his feet.

It’s a taunt, that word. _You almost had it right, didn’t you? You almost had everything you ever wanted._

_You almost had it all._

Sarah. His daughter. The loop is going to take her and it’s going to feel like dying all over again.

She giggles in her sleep. He almost didn’t believe it when Jemma had come to him one night, eyes sparkling and one finger pressed to her lips. ‘ _You have to see this, Fitz’_ she had said, and when she had taken his hand to lead him to their daughter’s room he had suddenly seen her at an innocent seventeen and vibrating with the type of energy only insatiable curiosity can bring. But when she had pushed open the door, just enough so they could peek inside, he saw her transform almost immediately to a mother who was no longer naïve but was determined to let their daughter be so for as long as it was safe.

Sarah had been asleep, curled in on her side, a stuffed toy clenched in her unforgiving baby fists. ‘ _Give it a minute,’_ Jemma had said with so much quiet excitement that it made him excited too. Sure enough, in a few seconds, there was a giggle, then silence, then a giggle again, and he swore his heart could not be any fuller than it was, and he could not find her any more adorable than he already did.

Sarah giggles in her sleep and loves oranges and hasn’t had to figure out yet that her parents will not always be able to come running when she cries.

To think that he will lose this precious daughter of his, this being whom he might just love more than anything else in the world, to this godforsaken loop that just isn’t satisfied with what he has already sacrificed is unbearable and it brings tears to his eyes and scream to his throat and an ache in his heart that just won’t go away.

_It is a fearful thing to love what time can touch._

Yes, Fitz knows this.

But he also knows that it is a horrifying and heart-breaking and infinitely _worse_ thing to love what death can steal from you in an instant.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


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